by Ted Bell
“What the bloody hell is going on? Somebody want to tell me?” he said, letting anger and frustration creep into his voice.
“This is not a shooting war, Johnnie Black.”
“It isn’t? Then there’s some serious lack of—what the hell kind of war are you boys fighting?”
“Right now it’s strictly a pushing and shoving war, sir.”
“Pushing and shoving.”
“That’s affirmative. Until further orders.”
“Roger, Archangel,” Hawke said, simultaneously calming himself down and peeling away. “Seems to have been a serious lack of communication somewhere along the line, Archangel.”
“Roger that, Johnnie Black. We apologize, sir. We, uh—were not informed you were coming. We, uh, oh shit!”
There was a muffled boom below and Hawke flipped his plane left and saw what had caused it. The French Mirage F1 jet had augured into the side of a mountain. Licks of orange fire and thick black smoke were curling up from the crash site. The pilot’s evasive maneuver was sound but he’d gone too deep. Or rather, Hawke thought, he’d been pushed and shoved too deep. Another pilot who’d run out of luck and experience at precisely the same moment.
“Looks like the other guy blinked,” Hawke said. “Too bad.”
“Roger that, Johnnie Black. You’ve certainly made our day a helluva lot more interesting. Sorry about the misunderstanding. We’ll definitely make the evening news tonight. Have a lovely day, sir.”
“Johnnie Black proceeding to Seeb International, Oman.”
Hawke rolled the jet right and came to a new heading. He could see the capital city of Muscat dead ahead. Jim Beam floated up on his left side. Hedges looked over at him, shaking his head. He was sure the American AWACS pilot thought he was crazy for going after the Mirage as aggressively as he had. But the French pilot was testing the waters. And Kelly had asked him to be as realistic as possible when he tested the waters himself. If Langley wanted a realistic assessment of Operation Deny Flight’s performance, then by God he was going to give them one.
The CIA wanted to find out exactly what the French pilots would do if challenged. Now they knew. Maybe this wasn’t a shooting war, not yet anyway. But all that might change radically and soon. A lot depended on what Johnnie Black found on the ground in Oman.
So far, if you didn’t count the little contretemps in Cannes a few weeks ago, not a single shot had been fired in this war. But each side had now lost one airplane. Only one side had lost a pilot.
So far.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Bad Reichenbach
STOKE HEARD THE PIANO TINKLING AS HE AND JET CLIMBED the slippery steps up from the cellar. Something deep and stirring in a minor key. Viktor was in great form, but it was four o’clock in the morning. What the hell was he doing awake? Jet said she had dumped enough of her potion into their teapots to put both him and Frau Irma out for a week.
“Is she in there, too?” Jet whispered. Viktor was banging out some heavy chords and Stoke didn’t think their whispers could be overheard. Jet was standing behind Stoke in the darkened kitchen doorway, both of them looking out into the living room. Flickering light and shadows were dancing on the ceiling and walls. Pairs of beady glass animal eyes were gleaming all around the room, staring down from the walls. Candles?
Yeah, Viktor had all the candles on the piano lit up for his moonlight sonata or whatever the hell he was playing now. Sure as hell wasn’t Ray Charles. Viktor’s setup looked like Liberace the way he had the heavy black lid of the piano propped up and the big silver candelabra lighting up the keyboard as he raised his hands up high before bringing them down on the ivories. Tinkle, tinkle, boom.
“Don’t see her. I think it’s just him,” Stoke said in her ear.
“Good. If we can slip past him and up the stairs to our rooms it would save us a lot of trouble. But you can’t make a sound. His sense of hearing is phenomenal.”
“Yeah? How come he plays such awful shit all the time?”
“Good question.”
“And, why the candles? He’s blind.”
“Smell,” Jet said. “He loves the smell.”
“Aromatherapy. It’s everywhere. Ready?”
Viktor was banging on the left side of the keyboard now, building up to his big climax. Jet squeezed his arm.
“Hurry. We must get to the stairs before this song ends. Go.”
They were halfway across the room when the music stopped, Viktor’s hands frozen in air above the keyboard. His head swiveled in Stoke’s direction.
“Guten Morgen, Herr Jones,” Viktor said after the last mournful note had faded away. “Wie gehts?”
“Pretty good, Viktor. How you doing, buddy?” Stoke said, wondering how on earth the man had heard him crossing the room in the middle of all that damn racket.
“Zo. You are a somnambulist, nicht wahr?”
“A what?”
“A sleepwalker.”
“Yeah, that’s right, Viktor. I’m seeing somebody about it but, man, nothing seems to work. It’s a problem. Listen, you don’t know any Ray Charles, do you?”
“Was?”
He stood there looking at the guy sitting at his piano. With the candlelight gleaming in the lenses of his dark glasses and his wild Einstein hairdo, Viktor looked like a demented eighty-year-old Bavarian rock star. Had he heard Jet, too? Maybe not. Girl moved like a tiger stalking something in the bush. She was frozen in place and watching Viktor like a cat. Stoke looked at her and put a finger to his lips. Then he motioned to her to continue padding over to the staircase while he engaged their host in conversation.
Stoke’s plan had been for the two of them to be packed up and out of here before Frau Irma and Viktor woke up in the morning. He’d leave a note and a lot of cash to cover their expenses. Down in the wine cellar, they’d carefully replaced the wine registry book and put the cellar table back just like they’d found it. He figured since the baron still had no idea where they were, no sense having Frau Irma calling him up and raising a lot of questions in his mind. He was also pretty sure he and Jet had given the two Arnolds the slip at the Adlon in Berlin.
Jet had flashed an okay sign and started to creep toward the staircase on tiptoe. Girl moved like a big cat who—
The explosive sound of the big weapon firing was so unexpected and so loud in the stillness of the dark room that Stoke almost came out of his shoes. He saw Jet hit the floor, hard, and roll up into a ball. Couldn’t tell if she was hit or what. He looked at Viktor and saw the smoke seeping from the muzzle of the gun in his hand, still aimed at where Jet had been. An old gun, some kind of funky machine gun, but it seemed to work okay. Now, Viktor swiveled on his piano bench and aimed the gun directly at Stokely. He was resting his shooting arm on top of the piano.
There was a second explosion as Stoke made a move toward the heavy desk to his left. The round buzzed by his head and slapped into the stone wall, just missing a big old woolly grizzly’s gleaming chompers.
“Don’t move,” Viktor said, “I warn you.” So, he spoke English, too. Boy was full of surprises tonight.
“Take it easy, Viktor, I’m not going anywhere,” Stoke said, inching sideways toward the desk. He’d considered simply diving over the piano and taking the old Kraut out. But he was watching Jet out of the corner of his eye. She was crawling silently on her belly toward the piano. No blood that he could see anywhere on her. She didn’t seem to be hurt. Good.
“I said, don’t move!” Viktor said.
“Easy does it, Viktor. Let me ask you, what kind of gun is that?”
“Das ist ein Schmeisser! A Schmeisser machine pistol. The best gun the Reich has ever produced.”
“It’s cool. I like it.”
“Zo, the Amerikaner, Mr. Jones. Enjoy your tour of Schloss Reichenbach, mein Herr?” Viktor asked him. The way he said it, his little grin, and the way his voice rose up at the end of the sentences, you could tell this was his idea of sarcasm and humor. His voice was scratchy
like some old newsreel from World War II.
“Well, I didn’t get to see all that much of—”
“Das ist verboten!” he screamed. “Strictly forbidden!” He pointed the business end of the old Wehrmacht machine pistol directly at Stoke’s heart. It was pumping pretty hard at the moment. Stoke wondered if Viktor’s overdeveloped ears could hear it.
“Your heart is beating very fast, Herr Jones. You are scared, no?”
“Jesus. Not that much.”
“I have orders from Baron von Draxis to shoot anyone who tries to gain entry to der Schloss.”
“Well, good. I’ve already been up there once, so you can scratch me off the list of folks to shoot. What a view, up there, Viktor. You ought to charge admission,” Stoke said. “Make you a fortune.”
“Der Schloss is off-limits to the guests,” Viktor said. “I told you. Strictly verboten.”
“Verboten, huh? Well, how about that? Nobody told me. Hey, Viktor, let me ask you another question. What’d you do? Go get that laser eye surgery while I was up there taking the Schloss tour?”
“Eyes? I see with my ears, Herr Jones. You should wear soft-soled shoes.”
“You see with your ears? Unbelievable. Okay, Viktor, how many fingers I’m holding up right now?”
“Was?” Viktor said. “Nicht verstehen.”
Stoke had figured his fingers joke was pretty funny but Viktor didn’t seem all that amused. If he lived to be a hundred, Stoke thought, he’d never understand the German sense of humor. Jet was in range of the piano now, and she was up on the balls of her feet, palms on the floor, in a crouch. She had a plan and Stoke could see it was a good one. He even saw a way to help her out.
He’d seen a heavy glass paperweight on the desktop behind him. A snowy alpine village inside. Stoke carefully reached behind his back, crabbed his fingers across the desktop until they brushed up against the baseball-sized globe. He palmed it, liking the heft. He considered just beaning Viktor with it, then decided on a better plan.
“Who’s that?” Stoke said suddenly.
“Who?” Viktor instinctively responded.
“Over there,” Stoke said, “Look! Another somnambulist.”
He hurled the glass ball at the mirror over the fireplace. The glass shattered and Viktor rose up off the stool, leaned forward across the opened piano and fired the Schmeisser at the sound of breaking glass. He got off a short burst of useless rounds but by then Jet was already in the air, flying toward the piano.
She came out of her tuck, did at least one midair somersault, and landed with both feet on the raised piano top. The heavy wooden lid slammed down hard on Viktor’s head and shoulders, smashing his face down against the taut wires. The whole top half of his body was now trapped inside the piano case, Jet’s weight keeping the lid down.
Jet stood atop the Steinway, smiling at Stoke.
“Crouching tiger,” she said. “Never fails.”
“Damn, girl, that was pretty good. Bruce Lee, eat your heart out good. You ever make a kung fu movie?”
From inside the piano came a low moan. Viktor was still alive anyway, but just barely, and Stoke didn’t really feel like giving him first aid right now. He pried the Schmeisser from his clenched fingers just for good measure. Good souvenir. Plus, he wasn’t remotely interested in that horror movie ending where the dead guy raises up and shoots your ass while you’re going out the door with the girl.
“You know what,” he said to Jet, “let’s do the early checkout thing. Do they have that here, you think?”
“Good idea. Where to next?”
“You said Leviathan was designed at this Tempelhof in Berlin, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ever been there?”
“Countless times.”
“How’s the security?”
“I think I could get us inside. Getting out alive would naturally be up to you.”
“Yeah. We’ll go check it out. Let’s pack up and vamoose.”
At the top of the stairs, they separated. He sent Jet along to her room to pack up since he knew she’d take longer. He continued up the stairs leading to the top floor. He thought it would be a real good idea to check on Frau Irma. He couldn’t imagine how she’d been able to sleep through all the commotion downstairs.
He entered the dark bedroom, pausing at the door to listen for snoring. Nothing. There was a funky smell in the room, but nothing he could put his finger on. The east windows were beginning to cast a faint grey light into the room. He could make out a lumpy shape lying in the middle of the four-poster bed. She was out all right, not moving a muscle. Jet must have administered some serious sleepy-time tea. He walked over to the bed and looked down at her.
He switched on the lamp by the bed. The shade was draped in a silk scarf that bathed the whole scene in soft red light.
Sleeping like a baby. A very ugly baby. Stoke had to say he finally understood that old expression “a face only a mother could love.” Her hooded yellow eyes, those man-eating fish eyes, were closed, praise God, and her long grey hair was down, splayed out on the pillow in thick, greasy strands. Stoke had to say it looked better up in buns. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a kind of grin and there was a little dried spit on her chin. She was very still. He bent down to see if she was breathing.
In the lamplight, her face looked yellow, as if all the blood had drained out of it. He reached down and put his hand on her powdery cheek. It was very cold and he quickly pressed two fingers to her carotid artery. Nada. There was another star in the skies over Germany tonight. The lovely Frau Irma Winterwald was dead. Jet had maybe accidentally overloaded her teapot with deadly nightshade. He’d have to ask her about that. Girl was getting frisky.
Stoke switched off the lamp. He hoped like hell Frau Irma was going to have herself a closed-casket funeral. Just for the undertaker’s sake if nobody else’s. She hadn’t looked all that good when she was breathing, but at least she had some color in her cheeks. Dead, she was a train wreck. You don’t want something like that lying around your funeral parlor in plain sight. Bad for business.
He looked up from the corpse and saw Jet standing in the doorway. She’d changed clothes. She was wearing a hooded parka and had a knapsack dangling from her shoulder.
“You killed her?” Stoke said.
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you why?”
“Self-protection, obviously, but I loathed that old woman. Anyway, we are almost finished with the Germans now.”
“Finished? What’s that supposed to mean, ‘finished’?”
“It’s complicated. I’ll explain on the way to Berlin. Let’s go. Have you looked out the window lately?”
“Hey, look at that. Wow. In summertime, no less,” Stoke said, moving to the window.
“Right. It’s snowing like crazy,” she said, walking over to take another look. Visibility was down to zero. A white-out.
Stokely said, “We’ve got to get out of this house, Jet. Now. We can’t afford to get snowed in up here.”
“Because?”
“Because maybe you can’t hear it, girl, but there’s a great big clock ticking and it’s getting louder by the second.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Ras al Hadd
HARRY BROCK WAS WAITING FOR HAWKE OUTSIDE THE dusty little cantina in the coastal village of Ras al Hadd. The squat, unpainted tourist café had two large windows on a second floor overlooking the sea. The drive south along the coast road from Muscat had taken almost three brutal hours. According to his handheld GPS, it continued in much the same fashion for another thousand kilometers or so, south along the coast to the town of Salalah.
Of course, he couldn’t confirm that on any map. Maps were forbidden in Oman. It was intended to confuse the sultan’s enemies but it worked pretty well for his friends, too.
Hawke parked the brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser they’d given him under a dusty pomegranate tree. It was the only tree he’d seen in the last hour. He drained th
e last of the water they’d provided and stuck his face right into the stream of icy air coming out of the center console. As he reluctantly switched off the ignition and opened the door on the blast furnace that was Oman in summer, Harry Brock strolled around the corner of the building.
Despite the intense heat and dust, Brock appeared fresh and cheerful. He wore the beginnings of a new beard, a clean white T-shirt, a pair of worn khakis, and a brown felt hat that had seen better days tilted back on his head. Hawke kept expecting him to say “Aw, shucks,” or something similar, but he never did.
“Welcome to Oman,” Brock said, shaking Hawke’s hand as he climbed out of the Toyota.
“Is that yours?” Hawke said, eyeing the Royal Enfield motorcycle parked by the side of the building. It was a Bullet 350, black, a legendary bike among the cognoscenti.
“Yeah,” Brock said, “I just picked it up yesterday in Muscat. With these so-called roads, I thought maybe a bike was a good idea.”
Whatever else could be said about Harry Brock, he had excellent taste in motorcycles.
“Nice place,” Hawke told Brock, looking around at the bleak and sunblistered location. The restaurant, which for some mysterious reason was named the Al-Kous Whisper, was surrounded by a low garden wall of rough-hewn stone. There was a carved wooden portal through which you entered this little Shangri-la in the desert.
“Isn’t it? Ras al Hadd is considered one of Oman’s garden spots.”
“Because it’s got a tree,” Hawke said.
“Bingo.”
So far, from what Alex had seen of the benighted countryside, Oman didn’t have a lot of garden spots. It looked like Mars in the off-season. Reddish, stony ground, baked dry. Desolate riverbeds, cracked and empty. Abandoned villages hanging from the terraced mountainsides. Dead scenery, he thought, driving through the unremittingly hostile environment.
The unprepossing Al-Kous Whisper was clearly reserved for tourists. Omanis weren’t allowed to drink alcohol, and he wasn’t even sure whether they were allowed to eat. No hootch, no maps. It was a very strict country. The sultan ran a tight ship. The Al-Kous had a flat roof and was built of concrete block. There were a few houses scattered nearby, looking abandoned and empty. These were older buildings constructed of wood and palm thatch.